Published: July 02, 2008 06:41 pm            

Fewer accidents — 07/03/08

Report: Drivers in Lexington and Louisville among safest

Drivers in Kentucky’s two largest cities — Louisville and Lexington — are among the safest in the nation, going among the longest periods between accidents.

That’s according to a new study by Allstate Insurance Co., which analyzed internal crash data over a period of two years to calculate the chances of drivers, in 193 of the nation’s most populated cities, being involved in an accident. The study does not include cities in Massachusetts, including Boston, because Allstate does not write policies in that state.

Allstate insures about 12 percent of the vehicles in the nation. While it is not the largest insurance carrier in Kentucky — State Farm is — it has enough clients in Kentucky to make its finding a reasonable test of Kentucky drivers.

Here is what the insurance company found: Among cities with populations of between 100,000 and 500,000, Lexington had the ninth safest drivers in the nation. Among cities with populations of between 500,000 and 1 million, Louisville had the third lowest percentage of vehicle accidents.

However, while Louisville drivers were ranked third in their category, Lexington motorists had a lower rate of accidents, but finished ninth among small cities. According to Allstate, drivers in Lexington go an average of 12.8 years between accidents, compared to an average of 11.4 years between crashes for Louisville drivers. In fact, Lexington’s accident rate was lower than any cities in the nation with a population of more than 500,000.

No other Kentucky cities were deemed large enough to be included in the study, but since the statistics clearly show that residents of smaller communities have fewer accidents than those of large cities, one can assume that drivers in Ashland, Morehead and Greenup are even less accident prone than those in Lexington and Louisville.

What can we conclude from Allstate’s findings? Well, it means that all things considered, we have a lot of good drivers in Kentucky.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.